CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Levi’s - The 2020 Project
Episode 02 — Rosalie Fish + Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
When Rosalie Fish stepped onto the track for one of her final high-school meets, she felt a new sense of purpose. This time she wasn’t running for herself. Fish found herself on the winner’s podium four times over the weekend (three golds, one silver). But that’s not the only reason people took notice, or why newspapers came calling. In each of her races, Fish ran with a red hand painted over her mouth. Scrawled on her leg in the same paint, “MMIW”: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Photos of her spread on social media. The image of that red hand over the mouth of the young runner—meant to symbolize speaking for those who couldn’t be spoken for—was undeniably striking. But it wasn’t necessarily political. “A lot of indigenous people are born into political lives, not at our own choosing,” Fish says. “For me to say I don’t want indigenous women to be ignored anymore is, by some people, a political statement. Advocating for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, they will say that’s political. To me that’s survival.”
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A career highlight was working with VICE and Levi’s to help tell this story. This documentary episode was part of a 10 part series and global campaign highlighting young people taking a stand for themselves and their people.
“Now that I’ve run for my people, there’s no way that I could ever run for anything else,” Fish says. “I’m taking power back, breaking stereotypes, using my platform, and dedicating it to somebody else. I can use it to amplify the voices of people who have been silenced.”
The grim stats demand it. Indigenous women are extremely vulnerable to violence—four out of five (83.4%) experience it in their lifetime. On some reservations, indigenous women are murdered at a rate 10 times the national average, according to the Department of Justice. It was reading stories about the topic—some hitting close to home in her native Washington state—that compelled Fish, herself of the Muckleshoot and Cowlitz tribes, to run on their behalf, so something might be done about this epidemic, and that they might be remembered.
